- 06 Apr 08, 22:45#38955
A few quotes from the interested parties:
Lewis Hamilton
Fernando Alonso
Pat Symonds
I think it's clear it was just a racing incident with no blame attachable to Alonso. Given what went on last year between the two I thought I'd better post these before this incident gets twisted into something it isn't.
Lewis Hamilton
I have no idea. I was behind him I went to move to the right and he went to move to the right as well and I ended up on the back somehow. It's racing.
Fernando Alonso
On lap one, he touched me in Turn Four in the rear diffuser. And then on lap two he jumped over me on the straight. I don't know what happened. I was flat out...the McLaren is quite quick on the straights.
I think we were running too close and for sure maybe he didn't realise how close we were. He jumped into my rear wing. I am sure on the first couple of laps, if you are eighth or ninth, you try to recover places too quickly.
Pat Symonds told me now that rumour, and he has printed now the data to show everybody. It is totally rubbish, but what can I do?
Pat Symonds
Fernando was coming out of the turn and accelerating down the straight. He reached fifth gear, at 227km/h, on full throttle, no touching of the brakes or anything like that. And you can see on the accelerometer the impact. He got hit from behind.
I think all I can say from our side is that there is no blame attributable to Fernando, which is what some of the speculation might be. But it does say we are not getting onto the straights very well, we are suffering a bit with traction, engine speed and engine torque.
We have the data and there is nothing untoward there. You don't need to be an expert to see that.
I think it's clear it was just a racing incident with no blame attachable to Alonso. Given what went on last year between the two I thought I'd better post these before this incident gets twisted into something it isn't.
Jim Clark, Monza, one lap down...